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Finding Neverland Blog Archive

Monday, November 28, 2016

This will be the 1000th post on the blog, something that otherwise
would have been a happy post about achievements but sadly, not the case, it
will be the last.

Only I can tell
how sad I feel while writing this post but in my heart, I know that this is the right time to move onto better,
maybe bigger things. This blog has given me everything that I wanted, it
presented me with all the opportunities that I wanted, and more or less, I
availed them.

There is so much
that I could still write about, so much that come in my mind that can easily
keep this blog going for years, but
that's life, maybe it has run its course.

At the very
beginning, it was everything I had or perhaps, it was the only thing I had, but over time it became a place where not
only me but others could share their views and use it as a platform for future.

I do not have the
capacity to write a lot here so I will
start by thanking everyone who joined the Finding Neverland family. It was an incredible ride, and from my heart's bottom, I thank you. I also want to thank
everyone who read the posts, shared them over other networks. Lastly, I want to
thank all the people who motivated me, suggested me, and in some cases, forced
me to write about particular things.

Sorry to everyone
who was offended, let down or hurt in any way by me or any of the post.

It will be an
understatement to say that I am leaving with a heavy heart when something is very close to you, it becomes your passion,
then forcing yourself against it becomes really tough.

The journey was
worth it, it has taught me so much that perhaps it will be enough for this
lifetime.

Leaving with just
one request, remember in kind words please,
and implement it, if you learned
something while reading anything here.

Thank you once
again from the bottom of my heart for all your love, kindness and
support.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Initially, studies did get in the way. Though Faisal's first
breakthrough came in 2004, when he played for Bahawalpur's U-19 team in an
inter-district tournament, he soon went back to studying for a master's degree
at Rabwah's School of Theology. It was there that Haye spotted him playing in a
tournament. When Faisal returned to cricket again, in 2011, he played for Jhang
in an inter-district tournament and propelled them to victory in the final
against Faisalabad.

"That final [for Jhang]... I had confidence and talent,
but I didn't have the practice, because I'd been out of cricket for five
years." He made 113 in the first innings, and 67 in the chase in the
second. A few months later he was making his first-class
debut for Faisalabad, scoring 72 in his first innings against PIA in the
Quaid-e-Azam trophy. Four years later came the performances in the T20 Cup that
did not bring him much attention.

"It's the kind of performance you only have in your
dreams," he says. "God was so kind." He prefaces almost every
other sentence with an earnest Alhamdulillah and mash'Allah.

Pakistan did not come calling and neither did any side in
the PSL. A franchise official responsible for player picks said Faisal's
performances in the T20 Cup had been monitored but gave the impression that he
was not an especially fashionable choice: a one-down anchor for a weak regional
side, nearly 30. Five, six years ago, maybe, not now. On the day that Faisal
realised he wasn't being drafted, Rafay declared he wouldn't let anyone watch a
single match of the league in his room, where usually every match is watched on
a flat screen TV, in full mahol(atmosphere).

Rafay is Faisal's biggest champion. He helps him train and
stick to a low-carb, protein-heavy diet, and once challenged him to race until
one of them dropped (it took over two hours for Faisal to beat Rafay). The
brothers encourage each other, even as they face the unending spate of
disappointing news. "He became emotional when I wasn't named for a [PSL]
team," Faisal says. "Our father said that we shouldn't worry.
Whatever God has done is for the best.

"I was ready with my bag and was supposed to go the
ground when the live announcement [for the PSL] was airing on ARY. I was
sitting there thinking, 'My name will appear just now… when I leave, I'll go to
the dessert shop, buy boxes of sweets and distribute it to everyone in the
ground.'"

When his name wasn't announced, Faisal was disappointed.
"I felt like putting my bag down and not going. But that would be giving
up, and this is a sin. Whatever it is, I have to go. I didn't practise the way
I should have. I was trying to get rid of my frustration; I hit every ball in
the nets. There was a frustration that anyone would have. But it's not that
I've lost the will and become disenchanted. I think that God will do what's
best for me.

"And if it isn't meant to be, it won't happen."

Meanwhile, a community waits for someone to break the glass
ceiling. Faisal's uncle, Kashif Imran, lives in Rabwah and occasionally plays
for Fazl-e-Umar. He wants to see any Ahmadi cricketer break through, not just
Faisal. "It'll be a break. It'll erase this indelible stamp that's there
right now - that they won't get an Ahmadi to play. If that kind of thinking
exists, it'll change that. If just one guy represents, the path can open
up."

Sunday, November 20, 2016

But after the tournament, there was silence. Faisal is
reluctant to go into further detail or assign blame for his not being picked.
Perhaps, he says, it is because he is from Bahawalpur and not a major city like
Karachi or Lahore. Haye and the others insist it is because Faisal is Ahmadi.
He has not hidden his faith. His family are prominent members of the community
in Bahawalpur, and many of his team-mates over the years have found out because
he has had to bow out of praying with them.

"Some people do discriminate, but I don't feel
it," Faisal says, demonstrating a sense of patience far beyond his years.
"When there's a water break, if I drink water first, then I can tell that
some people won't drink it then. So there are these small differences that keep
cropping up. Anyway, you can guess what's going on. I try to drink water right
at the end."

He is not sure whether anyone in the PCB is aware of his
faith. When I asked Rasheed whether or not Faisal's faith had played a role in
his non-selection, he said: "I can say for myself and for the selectors
that we do not think of this. As national selectors we are not representing a
particular place. Our thought process has to be 'national' for us to pick a
national team."

One problem, as another selector, the former fast bowler
Saleem Jaffar, pointed out is that Faisal is not yet part of a big-name
department side. He signed on with State Bank of Pakistan (where his father
works) just before the T20 Cup, but they are a Grade II side and not yet
playing first-class cricket. "The quality is better than that of regional
cricket, and the boys play with Test cricketers," Jaffar explained.
"If a boy plays well in a region, a department will pick him right away,
and that's where he's made."

Cricket is very much part of Faisal's family. As well as
Rafay, his oldest brother, Muneeb, played and looked destined to do so
professionally. "Our father had given him permission," Faisal says,
pausing to sip his tea. But Muneeb's career was cut short, Faisal says, because
it was difficult at the time for boys from small-town Bahawalpur to make it
into a regional team. Muneeb now lives in Germany. Aqeel Anjum, an older
cousin, has also forged an accomplished first-class career as a batsman.

Mubashir Ahmad, the father of the boys, is to be credited
for encouraging the three to play cricket. "There are very few parents
like ours, who give the kind of support our father has given us," Faisal
says. "Parents tell their children to become doctors and engineers. But
our father said, 'Fine, study, but if you want to play cricket, do it properly.
Make a name for yourself.' People would ask him what his children did, and he'd
say, 'They play cricket.'"

Monday, November 14, 2016

In 2013, Faisal bin Mubashir's brother Rafay was
waiting for his turn to play in a practice match in Lahore. He had been
selected for the Pakistan U-19 side for a tri-series to be played in England
that August. Rafay was excited about the future, about the possibility of
playing in a game that would be broadcast and watched back in Pakistan by his
parents and family. As Rafay waited - the burden of expectations, his own, his
family's, weighing on his shoulders - the team physician turned to him.
"Become a Muslim," he said.

Rafay had a ready retort, honed from years of being teased
and mocked about his faith in school: "I'm going to play now. I'll become
a Muslim after that."

Before this "invitation", Rafay had gone to apply
for a visa for the tournament in England. The physician had spotted Rafay's
religion on his passport. "So he started asking around [the others], 'Are
you Ahl al-Hadith?' [people of the traditions of the
Prophet]," Rafay recalls. "When he asked me, I said, 'Thank God, I am
a Muslim.' He said, 'What kind of Muslim?' I said 'I'm an Ahmadi Muslim.'"

He still can't describe the feeling of representing
Pakistan. He sat out the first four games before playing two and missing the
final, which Pakistan won. He scored 35 and 1. He then played another
couple of games against England U-19 in December that year, in the UAE, but
made only 1 and 1. It's easy to see why he wasn't selected later, especially as
there were others in those sides who impressed and progressed (Sami Aslam and
Zafar Gohar, to name just two). Rafay admits to a lack of performances. Now he
hasn't played professional cricket in a while. He missed a season because of a
badly twisted foot, and now can't find a place in either a local or first-class
team.

In Rabwah, one name is now the living epitome of the town's
disappointment, the crystallisation of its disillusionment: Faisalbhai.
"No one is as unlucky as Faisal," Haye says. "If you can't make
it to the Pakistani side after performing this well, then what is the
criteria??"

After each match in that domestic T20 Cup, Faisal's old
coach Khalid Farooq convinced him that the PCB was watching, that they just
wanted to see how he would do in the next one, or the one after that, or the
high-stakes match against Lahore. "We were staying at the Hill View Hotel
[in Islamabad]. All the players [of all teams] were there, except for [Shahid]
Afridi. Everyone was saying that Faisal is going to be named in the national
squad, that it had to happen now. I told the coach that I have to put my name
forward, and he kept saying, 'When you get the good news, call me.'"
Faisal kept hearing that his name was all but final for one squad or another,
in Pakistan's A side, if nothing else.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

The revelation hangs in the air. It is difficult to
comprehend. Pakistan's first ball in a World Cup was bowled by an Ahmadi.Pakistan's
first ball in a World Cup was bowled by an Ahmadi.

Malik bowled that ball nine months to the day after his
country's parliament had passed a law constitutionally excommunicating him and
his community. In the months that preceded that day and the ones that followed
it, Ahmadis were dubbed traitors and heretics. Malik did well, taking 2 for 37
and ending the World Cup with five wickets. He was, in fact, Pakistan's
joint-leading wicket-taker for the tournament, alongside Imran Khan and Sarfraz
Nawaz. He never played for Pakistan again. Haye believes Malik was selected for
the World Cup because the impact of the 1974 decision was yet to set in, and
because the team needed him.

According to Khadim Baloch's Encyclopaedia of
Pakistan Cricket, Malik suffered an ankle injury that kept him out of
cricket for much of the following season. When he returned he did well, and as
part of ZA Bhutto XI against New Zealand, in October 1976, he was on the
fringes of national selection again. He did not make it, though perhaps a lack
of motivation had something to do with it. In an interview with the Cricketer
(Pakistan) in December 1975, Malik said he did not consider himself
"a professional cricketer". Cricket was a hobby, he said, and he was
proud he had got a job at NBP on his educational merit (as an engineer) and not
through a sporting quota. Eventually he retired from first-class cricket in
1982, returning in the mid-'90s as a match referee. He supervised a fast
bowling camp organised by Sarfraz in 1999. On August 1 that same year, he died
of a heart attack. He was buried in Rabwah.

What was he thinking that day in June when he made his
Pakistan debut? Would he have thought about his journey, from his birth in Lyallpur
(now Faisalabad) to captaining his college team, to this moment at Headingley?
Did he know he was making history in more ways than one? Did he know that
Ahmadi boys would never dream of what he had achieved? Did he imagine a world
where his team-mate that day, Imran Khan, would shun the idea of even hiring an
Ahmadi or asking Ahmadis for their votes? Did he know that 41 years after he
made history, Ahmadi boys would be told to "join the circle of
Islam", and that their team-mates would refuse water if they drank it
first?